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Work / Status date

5 replies [Last post]
Dan Mårtensson
User offline. Last seen 11 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Posts: 59

Hello,

 

Need some help with a problem I have regarding work distribution in MS Project 2010.

 

Problem;

 

Task A

Duration: 5 days

Work: 30 hours

Start: 2013-03-04

Finish: 2013-03-08

 

Status date: 2013-03-05 (2days reporting)   

 

This means that the resource should work 12 hours.

 

But, actual is 15 hours.

 

Here is the problem, MS Project places 3 hours on the next day after status date which is wrong (Future). I want Project to place the total hours before status date.

 

Is this possible?

 

Hoping for an answer

 

Thank you

 

Regards

 

Dan

Replies

Evgeny Z.
User offline. Last seen 1 year 3 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 13 Jan 2008
Posts: 442
Groups: None

Dan,

MSP does not prevent you from entering progress into the future. And in this case, how do you want MSP to know when exacty the resource has worked?  

There are many ways to spend 15 hours on your task. E.g.

Mon – 7 h, Tue – 8h

Mon - 5h, Tue – 10h

Mon – 6h, Tue – 6h, Wed – 2h

Mon – 3h, Tue – 3h, Wed – 3h, Thu – 3h, Fri – 3h,

…………………………..

MSP just takes the most logical assumption: resource worked in accordance to the plan (6h a day in your case). If resource worked differently from this – you have to enter this manually

Dan Mårtensson
User offline. Last seen 11 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Posts: 59

Sorry for the bad picture

 

/Dan

Dan Mårtensson
User offline. Last seen 11 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Posts: 59

Hello and thank you for fast replies,

I will add information for you so you can understand my problem.

The calendar is set on Monday to Friday, 8 hours/ day. 40h/week.

1565
123.jpg

So the resource is working 75% out of 100%. Planned 6 hours/ days which means he is available 2 hours more, but still MSP places the hours in the future.

I can fix this problem by manually put in the data in the resource usage view, and that’s fine. But there has to be a way that MSP calculate this automatic.

Evgeny Z.
User offline. Last seen 1 year 3 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 13 Jan 2008
Posts: 442
Groups: None

Dan,

MSP allows different ways to enter progress, and some of them may produce incorrect update (like in your case).

As Rabey suggested,  you can use the Task Usage view and enter hours into the actual work field.

Note, that in your case you actually spend more than you planned, therefore MSP may recalculate the remaining work and reduce it (I noticed, that different versions do it slightly different). Hence when entering progress you not only have to update spent efforts, but also update remaining work.

The picture below is from MSP 2007. But MSP 2010 should be pretty much the same. You noticed, that I assumed, that resource spent Monday 8 h and Tue 7 h, but in MSP you can enter actual time spent with the entervals as low as 15 minutes.

e.g.  

Mon 04.03.13 08:00 - Mon 04.03.13 08:15 - resource worked 10 minutes on the task 

Mon 04.03.13 08:15 - Mon 04.03.13 08:30 - resource worked 15 minutes on the task 

......

Regards.

 

Evgeny

 photo progress_zps4b450e8b.png

Trevor Rabey
User offline. Last seen 1 year 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 530
Groups: None

You have not really provided enough information but if you show the times it should be enough.

It appears that you have a calendar with 6 working hours per day, and I assume that this calendar applies to both the task and the resource, but what is the start and finish time of the day?

Assuming that you have a day defined as 6 hours (Options), and if the task started at say 08:00 on 2013-03-04 then that day finishes at 14:00. Same for the second day. You can use the task usage view to input the 15 actual hours of work but you will have to know where the 15 hours occurred over the two days. Was it 7 + 8, or 8 + 7, or 6 + 9 or what and where were they?